LyrArc Article Gist
The union representing 75000 nurses and pharmacists and other workers in California reached a settlement after a 3 day strike. Julie Shu, acting Labor secretary participated in the negotiations. Kaiser Permanente has 40 hospitals, medical offices and 213,000 employees other than doctors, serving 12.7 million people on the West Coast of the US. A sticking point was outsourcing. It is the largest strike of healthcare workers in the US for wages and benefits.

LyrArc Article Gist
Shoichiro Toyoda and Okuda who ran Toyota in the eighties and nineties to make Toyota what it is today, question Toyota's strategy. The precise criticism is outlined in this article at the timwe Tooyota was considering its eigth plant in Tupelo, Mississippi. Their criticism focusses on the complacency to tolerate higher labor costs, to accept less manufacturing efficiency in overseas plants compared to Japan, and put in billions of dollars in new plants which may not be profitable quickly when the same result can be accomplished by adding more assembly lines to existing plants. The Toyota Tundra plant in Texas has overcapacity as the pickup has not sold as expected and this could happen at other plants if Toyota is not careful enough. Also the decisions to build plants in many different states appears to be based not just on manufacturing efficiency but also on desire to win political support in those states- California, Indiana and 6 southern states. Has that gone too far even when it is cheaper to manufacture in Japan because of the weaker yen? If it helps to keep the targets for Toyota vehicle content made in the USA (when imports have increased significantly) cannot this be accomplished by adding more assembly lines to existing plants? These are the points made by Shoichiro and Okuda. Especially that complacency may be getting into decisionmaking at Toyota. Behind all this is the fear that the Big Three may finally be breaking free of the higher unionized wage and benefit costs that put them at a disadvantage. And at the same time the quality gap may be shruinking between Toyota and the US manufacturers. This is evidenced in other articles, one recently on Ford's progress in JD Powers surveys. Here the figure of 2.3 million vehicles recalled in 2005 by Toyota is cited as showing Toyota slipping in the quality it was known for....

LyrArc Article Gist
Bank of England Governor Mervyn King says the Monetary Policy Committee expects inflation to be above the 2% target till the end of 2015. King is aware of the slack in the British economy and low levels of wage inflation. He has indicated his approach to be flexible about inflation. The new Governor Mark Carney also favors flexibility in inflation targeting. The tradeoffs between inflation and growth are very much the focus of their attention. To support growth King supports a longer time period to bring inflation back to 2%.

LyrArc Article Gist
The Obama administration's budget for 2016 includes $19 billion for cybersecurity, a 35% increase.

LyrArc Article Gist
The new minimum wage of $15 effective Nov. 1, 2018, applies to 250,000 current employees at Amazon, 40% of its global  workforce. An additional 100,000 seasonal workers also get the $15 wage. California's minimum wage is set to go to $15 an hour in 2022. The Amazon move helps it attract and retain workers in competition with other retailers such as Target, UPS and Fedex. In doing this Amazon is removing certain incentive pay and stock compensation for these hourly employees. Target has set 2020 as the date for $15 per hour wage, currently it is $12 at Target. Walmart with 1.5 million employees set $11 per hour as the starting hourly pay for workers in 2018. Overall median salary annually for Amazon workers worldwide was $28,446 in 2017, which works out to about $13.68 an hour, but this includes software engineers and lower wage workers overseas. That figure is lower than the poverty level set by the U.S. government for a family of four. Much of the criticism has focused on wages at companies such as Amazon, as lack of upward mobility is a major issue in the U.S. - growing worse over two decades of tech advances, also carrying with it literacy levels for children which have also deteriorated. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
A wind farm out at sea to start in 3 years, small renovation projects across France and Germany, a couple of billion dollars from the French government for home renovations- this kind of approach is considered completely unrealistic say EU legislators. One Danish legislator asks what is more unrealistic? Setting serious targets for conversion to renewable energy or depending on Putin's gas and oil?  These EU legislators are calling for aggressive action now. The European Commission set a 9% goal for energy savings by 2030, this has now been moved up to 13%. EU legislators are calling for 23% in savings by 2030. And even this may not be enough to meet the goals for climate change to prevent the disaster from climate change with fires and floods and heat waves that hurt agriculture and food supplies. A savings target of 19% is about the gas that runs 40% of the cars and trucks on American roads in 2021 or 214 million metric tons of oil. The French government has set aside 3 billion euros for comprehensive renovations of homes to save energy with a target of 300,000 homes in 2022. This is completely inadequate as it will cost 23 billion euros say experts on the Paris city council. Renovations are only running at 60,000 a year. A big part of the conversion in Europe is converting from gas heating to electric heating. France is boosting subsidies for new electric heat pump installations.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Slowly but steadily concrete walls built during the surge to prevent sectarian or other political violence are coming down as Iraq returns to some semblence of normalcy.

LyrArc Article Gist
India stands true to the principles of Mohandas Gandhi and joins Pope Francis in strongly condemning the killing of innocent civilians in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as Gandhi would have done in his own way when he even paused the nonviolent struggle against the British after the burning of police stations in British India. Of no less significance is the danger of food insecurity caused by the war in Asia, Africa and Latin America which India is meeting. India is America's true partner in the free world in a way that even Germany, France, even Britain fail to be now that we know Merkel's policy "errors" and Macron's lofty ambitions for Europe, emboldened Russia in its invasion of Ukraine. American and German business integration of the American and German economies with China may also have emboldened Russia and China in their perceptions of world affairs that directly conflict with China's Buddhist history, Gandhi's view of the world, and India as the land of the Buddha.  Mr. Biden will talk with Modi about the invasion of Ukraine , the Indo-Pacific, and the building of strong India-US partnership. A major issue that has not been discussed at this level is the challenge India is facing and meeting of food security after the war in Ukraine. Pakistan, Sri Lanka and many developing countries are feeling the effects of the war with soaring food prices denying access to basic necessities in these countries. This extends to countries from Asia to Africa and Latin America affecting hundreds of millions of people.  India is providing food assistance following its effort to share vaccines in a remarkable effort that has not received the world's attention. Vaccination for over a billion people in India has taken place in one of the significant achievements during the pandemic. This was combined with food security assistance to hundreds of millions of people in India in India's population of 1.2 billion people. India is now in a position to meet some of the world's food needs with its own efforts in agricultural production. In this way the role played by the US since World War II for peace and security is being met by India as a significant partner in the free world, and in a way this is returning the kind of help the US offered India during the period of famine in the sixties. US president Biden understands this as he will discuss "mitigating the destabilising impact on global food supply and commodity markets" of the war in Ukraine. These are the hidden costs of the war that are not less painful than the gory war scenes unfolding today in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and because they are about food they are of no less importance. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Apple gets 19% of its sales in China with a manufacturing base that includes 1 million people employed in one Chinese city. In an effort to promote Make in China China is giving Huawei more room to compete with Apple. Huawei is bringing out a new 5G phone as an alternative and has banned use of Aplle iphones in government agencies. This means about 56 million people will have to turn to locally made products. China presents this move as an effort to protect data and cybersecurity. Yet Apple has a share price increase of 46% this year even in an environment in which US and China are restricting the export of key technologies (by US) or critical materials for electric cars (by China). Apple's responses to this have been slow preferring to keep its supply chain the way it is in a strategy based on the short run, with some minor shift to India and Vietnam.

LyrArc Article Gist
Indonesia is a country with a long history of Hindu and Buddhist culture before conversion to Islam through traders from Malaysia and Sufi saints in the sixteenth and seventeenth century. Hanuman and other deities from India are also part of the existing culture and traditions. Communist influence has been alien to this culture and tradition as in India. It was part of the Dutch empire in the east and a source of European trade in spices from the seventeenth century. It is also a extensive island chain of Java, Sumatra and other islands with a population of 280 million very closely linked to India culturally and with links to America since independence. Indonesia was given a great deal of importance during the Cold War with Robert Kennedy and other leaders visiting Indonesia during the period after Sukarno in the sixties. By 2000 the US engagement with China had evolved to the point that neglected India, Indonesia and the entire south east Asian region in a preference for links with China.  The British division of India led to the US links with India and Indonesia being shaped by that division and the Cold War with Russia. The confusion of the struggle against colonial rule of the British and Dutch led to leaders such as Nehru and Sukarno who compounded the difficulties of the Cold War and perpetuated with it the old British idea of a divided South Asia on a religious basis that had supported British rule and set the conditions that made it possible for a small group of English civil servants to run the country. This led to the Indian and Indonesian relationship with the US being stifled as the US struggled to rid itself of the British obsession with a divided India. Culturally India and Indonesia are part of an extended region in Asia with development aspirations and a youthful population that aspires to better infrastructure, better education, healthcare and ease of living, and the better opportunities in life. This is what migration did for Europeans who left for America for a new life on the east coast and on the prairies of America. It has little to do with the obsessions of the British and the Dutch that divided the region between the Indus and the Ganges and divided the Indonesian islands. That phase is now coming to an end as China reverts to its Communist period leadership under a new generation led by Mr. Jinping, a son of one of the veterans of the Communist Revolution of 1949. The US has to evolve its relations with India, Indonesia, Vietnam and other countries into new ties of trade, culture and technological exchange. This is needed as it winds down its close trade relations with China in its supply chain to rebuild a new supply chain after the trade wars and the pandemic revealed the deep flaws of that supply chain. What is needed is not the efforts of one changing adminstration after another, but an effort started by president Biden that will last through different administrations as the US engages with Asia in the way that it engaged with Europe after FDR and Truman for most of the twentieth century. And one that rids itself of the obsessions of divided regions from the colonial period of the Dutch and the British. The1.6 billion people in India and Indonesia share a  common aspiration of being a major part of the Free World with America. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
China's president expresses the need for greater cooperation between China and Germany during Scholz's Beijing visit and says "we jointly oppose the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons." Scholz for his part said "it is right and good that I am in Beijing today," that in times of change bilateral meetings were all the more important. China's president Xi said that "in times of change and turmoil" nations of influence should work together for world peace. This is the first time after the covid lockdowns that Chinese leaders are meeting a leader from a large western nation, and this is generally welcomed in China.

LyrArc Article Gist
Special Counsel Mueller's team says in a court filing that Paul Manafort, Mr. Trump's campaign manager should face a prison term of 19 to 24 years for "serious, longstanding, and bold" financial crimes.  Manafort also faces financial penalties totaling about $50 million, according to the filing. Some of the problems date to years before Manafort joined the Trump campaign as campaign chairman.

LyrArc Article Gist
A look at the deficit/imports deficits divided by imports ratio formula used by DJT in Rose Garden chart Liberation Day April 2, 2025 shows the importance of deficits and total imports by country. The criticism in NYT of this formula centers on- Why not the use of manufactured goods plus services and why exclude services. This is easily answered the whole idea is to bring manufacturing back to the US. US Trade Representative Jamieson and president DJT say 5 million manufacturing jobs were lost and 90,000 factories closed over 2 decades of outshoring by American companies, most of it to China. Only by focusing on manufactured goods can this be corrected. What about using a five year average of the trade deficit instead of most recent 2024 trade deficit used by the president DJT? NYT says it distorts the ratio for Equatorial Guinea? But it shifts it only slightly by less than 1 percent for China and even less than that for the European Union. US is focused on correcting the unfair treatment of American workers and factories inside America that led to this loss of 5 million jobs and tens of thousands of factories, destroying the Nation's industrial base. Most of it to China, What that has to do with Equatorial Guinea is beyond comprehension and shows the ignorance that is fueling much of the criticism of the efforts to support American workers who are the best in the world when given the opportunity and management is doing it's job right. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Walmart plans to take a 75% stake in India's online retailer FlipKart for $15 billion. The move comes as Amazon is making an an effort to invest heavily in online sales in India. Amazon plans to invest $5 billion and is making strong gains in the growing Indian online market. This is expected to give Amazon about one third of its revenue growth in the next 3 years. The move by Walmart is seen as a defensive one against Amazon's efforts.

Walmart has 21 Best Price wholesale stores in India which it started in 2009. Foreign owned companies can only sell their own products under Indian rules and this makes it harder for Walmart. Online retailing is away to get around this restriction to sell many products and brands. India is growing in online retail with $35 billion estimated for 2019 by Forrester, this compares with $935 billion in China and $459 billion in the U.S.

LyrArc Article Gist
WSJ poll in January 2025 shows DJT has the support of the American people to make changes and at the same time not enough support for major changes the president elect has promised to make. Deport all migrants with criminal records 75% support. On large scale deportation of migrants 70% disapprove deporting long time residents who have no criminal records. Does this long time resident mean people who are here before 2021 when for the first time migrants reached 200,000 in mid year 2021 exceeding the 150,000 peak in DJT's first term, is not made clear by this report on the WSJ poll. This is the point mid 2021 when Biden was supposed to have removed Mayorkas as Homeland Secretary and come up with new legislation with Republicans to close the border before a surge.  Ending birthright citizenship- 64% disapprove 31% approve. Set tariffs on all foreign goods- 48% approve 46% disapprove Eliminating programs for healthcare, education, social safety net- 60% disapprove 34% approve. Eliminate the Department of Education, and eliminate replace career civil service officers- 60% disapprove. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The Iraqi cabinet which is a microcosm of the Parliament vote to approve the negotiated agreement with the US. The agreement requires US and coalition forces to withdraw from Iraqi cities and towns by the summer of 2009 and from Iraq by 2011, with a firm date for final withdrawal in 2011. It has the support of Ayatollah Sistani and of all parties, including the Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds and secular parties.

LyrArc Article Gist
Boeing's goal is to make 10 Dreamliners a month by late 2013. The current rate is 2 per month, which Boeing hopes to move up to 2.5 a month by November 2011, and 3.5 a month by early Spring. Boeing CEO, McInerney, says it will take a few years before each Dreamliner turns a profit. He expects this will happen before 2020. The large investment during this decade should see returns in terms of an annuity for 25-35 years, said McInerney. The Dreamliner is the first jetliner to be made largely of plastic-composite materials, in place of aluminium. To build the Dreamliner Boeing had to accomplish what McInerney calls "game-changing innovation," and at the same time achieve improvements in production techniques. Jim Albaugh, head of Boeing's Commercial Airplanes division, says the next step is to take what takes an hour and half to assemble and bring this down to 15 minutes. This will help meet a long backlog of orders. Boeing has 820 orders for the Dreamliner as of Sept. 2011. The first Dreamliner was delivered on Sept. 26, 2011, to All Nippon Airways....